Second Glance
by VaderWasFramed
Summary: He thought she was about to jump off the bridge. The truth is, she couldn't see where she was going, because she's blind. Cecelia is the new girl in Beacon Hills, and she's making friends in high places. In fact, she fits in almost suspiciously well. Is the blind girl everything she appears to be, or is there more to see with a closer look?
1. The Sound of Silence

**Prologue**

The room they put her in was small. She knew it was small because there was no echo, and the door was very close to her side. Every time it opened she felt a little rush of air, and as an officer would step inside, a frenzy of noise from the station would trickle in behind him, like a brief snippet from some radio station. But then the door would close, and it was silent again. Only her breathing and Malachi's restless sighs every few moments could be heard.

A cup of water sat between her fingers on the table. She hadn't taken the first sip. Instead, she used it to scoot back and forth to occupy her mind. Cecelia quietly hummed a Simon & Garfunkel tune under her breath, and her dog shifted anxiously at her feet. He lifted his head in alert, his ears perked up, and let out a small puff of warning, and her humming cut out as the door opened.

A man stepped in. She knew it was a man because he smelled like aftershave and stale coffee, and Malachi was always more on edge when a man entered a room. Her dog made a little noise of discontent and shifted again, his paw nudging against her shoe. She lifted that foot to cross it, holding it out of his reach.

"Sorry for the wait," Sheriff said. He pulled the chair out from across her and sighed as he settled in. "Are you hungry? I'm sure I could—"

"I'm fine," She said with a smile.

A beat passed as seemed to accept the response and flipped open something on the table. "Cecelia… can I call you that?"

"Well, that's my name, so… yes."

"Okay, Cecelia. I don't like to dance around issues. This whole thing will go a lot smoother if we're both just brutally honest with each other. Is that something you think you can do?"

"Can I be brutally honest?" She smirked, and the Sheriff didn't comment. "Sir, you really don't need to prep me like this. Just get to the point; my dog's about to start crawling up the walls."

He made a noise of hesitation, and in her mind she imagined that he looked down. The response was nothing new to Cecelia; her dog often made strangers uncomfortable. "Do you want me to ask an officer to take him out while we talk?"

"You can try," Cecelia grinned. "Malachi has terrible separation anxiety."

Sheriff snorted and settled back in his seat. "I used to have a German Shepherd," He told her, and Cecelia tactfully ignored that he seemed to be straying from the topic. "When I was a boy. I taught him to roll over, sit and stay. He ate more green beans and peas than anyone I've ever met."

She smirked, trying hard to imagine a youthful Sheriff slipping his dog table scraps at suppertime. "They're good companions."

"They are," He agreed, a grin in his voice. There was another brief moment of silence before the Sheriff seemed to come back to himself. He shifted in his seat and drew in a breath, shuffling some papers around on the desk. "Now… You're aware of some events that happened at the party you were at this weekend."

She kept her face carefully blank. Tilting her head, she said, "That was rather vague. I thought you said you were going to be brutally honest?"

Sheriff's voice was almost hard as he replied. "We already _know_ that you were at the party. What I can't seem to figure out is why you showed up uninvited."

"Uninvited?" She snorted. "Sheriff, no one at that party was _invited_. It was a high school party. If you're lucky enough to be told about it, you show up."

"How did you hear about it?"

"Mason. Mason Hewitt. He's been showing me around school and he… seems to be under the impression that as the resident blind girl, I was sorely overdue for some fun."

"Fun," The Sheriff dryly repeated. "And what happened at that party was fun to you?"

"Honestly? No. I hate parties." She paused and made the point to push her black sunglasses up. "They're… overwhelming for me."

"I'm sure they are. You're very careful with your words," Sheriff observed. "Why is that?"

"I like to mean what I say. Why are you treating me like I'm hiding something from you?"

"Because I think you are," He bluntly told her. "You're acting like it."

"I'm being very honest with you."

"You're being very careful with me," Sheriff said, his tone dropping with impatience. "If you hate parties, why did you go?"

"Mason can be very persuasive."

"Okay. Fine. So you went to the party because Mason persuaded you to go, because you're new, and he's showing you around, and he wants you to make friends. Does that sound about right?"

She nodded.

Sheriff remained quiet for a few seconds, before finally saying, "I better not find out that you're lying to me."

"You know, you remind me a lot of my dad. That tone you're using… it's the same tone I used to hear whenever I was in trouble."

Sheriff snorted. "Is he in law enforcement?"

"Yes, but that's not the tone of a Sheriff. That's the tone of a father."

He breathed out a laugh and shifted in his seat. "I suppose that's true. Now, back to the party. Do you remember anything happening that was… unusual?"

Cecelia's lips twitched. "A man was decapitated."

"What do you know about that?" He asked, leaning forward slightly.

Malachi sighed and laid his head down, apparently bored. Cecelia seemed calm as she said, "I'm told it was a gruesome sight."

"You were found at the scene when officers responded. You were there. What do you think?"

"I didn't see it myself," She told him. "I'm blind. Or can't you tell from my sunglasses and Seeing Eye dog?"

"I know you're blind, that's not what I meant. You found the body, didn't you?"

"I was there. Along with two other people."

"You told the responding officers that Scott McCall and Chris Argent were there examining the body with you. It's interesting to me that you spoke with them about it first before calling the police."

"They were very capable," She told him. "I know it must seem strange to you, but my first instinct in a crisis is not to call the police like it is with most people. I wasn't raised that way."

"Didn't you say your dad was a cop?"

Cecelia smiled. "Exactly."

The Sheriff remained quiet for a few moments before he continued. "Did you tamper with the body in any way before the police arrived?"

"Of course not," Cecelia answered in an almost offended tone. "Do you think I'm an idiot?"

"No," Sheriff answered, just as testily. "It's obvious that you think you're really smart. And you think you can get by with just giving me the surface of the truth."

Cecelia didn't respond, but her face had lost all traces of amusement. She sat looking much more uncomfortable than before.

Sheriff leaned back and patted something on the desk before continuing. "Now, I don't know what sort of cop your dad was to make you feel like you can't trust the police, but I actually care about what happens in my town. So I don't like it when a grown man is decapitated at a party that my own son was attending. So how about you stop playing games with me, and start acting like you actually care that you found a dead man lying in the street?"

For a brief moment, the Sheriff was confused when he heard a quiet chuckle bubble from the girl's lips. For a split second he thought that someone else had entered the room with them, and then he realized that the quiet, persistent laughter was coming from the girl sitting across from him. He sat up straighter as she kept her head ducked and her laughter grew.

Her dog still had his head down, but when the heel of her hand abruptly smacked the wooden table, he whipped his head up and looked around in alert. Sheriff couldn't keep the expression of mild disturbance off his face as Cecelia, the blind girl he'd never met before, hunched over the desk like he'd just told her the funniest joke she'd heard in months.

"Okay…" She told him, and it occurred to him that the shy, quiet, somewhat standoffish girl he'd been speaking with for the past seven minutes was nothing more than an act, and that the confident, capable woman who sat up and looked at him as if she could actually see his face was the true Cecelia Rose. "Okay. Since you asked so nicely, the truth."

Sheriff gave the most minute of nods and kept his voice measured as he said, "Okay."

Cecelia drew in a breath and her eyebrow cocked again, a movement that the Sheriff was beginning to detect as somewhat of a signature of hers. "Have you ever seen a dam burst, Sheriff Stilinski?"

The Sheriff blinked. The abrupt and complete subject change dazed him for a moment, paired with the fact that she'd used his last name for the first time, and he blinked again as his mind struggled to answer her question. "A dam?"

"Yes. When a dam finally bursts, it swallows up and washes away everything in its path. Drowns anything that remains afterwards. But before it burst, it can be traced back to one single crack. That crack grew, and then another one sprouted, and so on, until eventually…" She trailed off, and the Sheriff could imagine the scene she painted for him as she spoke. The concrete wall cracking over time. The slow leak of water, the relentless pressure pushing against the wall of the dam until it produced another crack, and another, until soon there was nothing but a tangled web of cracks stretching across the wet concrete. Then the final explosion as the water finally burst free and rushed forward in a flood, and the wall was washed away, along with everything that came afterward.

He didn't respond. He just frowned at her in confusion and waited to see where she took it.

"Consider this conversation evidence of a leak in the dam."

"So what caused the crack?"

"I'm glad you asked. See, you're a little behind on the narrative, Sheriff." Cecelia seemed to take no small measure of pleasure in completely stunning the Sheriff into silence as she smugly continued, her legs crossed and fingers tapping a beat against the cup of water. "My family and I moved all the way here from Louisiana. There's a surprising amount of activity in Louisiana. Tensas county especially, right on the Mississippi border."

"Activity?" He asked, almost as an afterthought, and his question was swallowed in her speech as she continued.

"Before Tensas it was Devil's Lake out in North Dakota. It's not as exciting as it sounds. A weird mixture of Boy Scouts and casinos. But there is a rich culture of Sioux heritage to be had… And before that, Vermont. Now _there's_ a beautiful state. Too bad its plagued with vengeful spirits."

"Spirits?" Sheriff asked, his suspension of disbelief finally cracking.

"Werewolves?" She asked, just as smoothly, and he seemed to have a physical reaction to the unexpected word. He jerked slightly and something fell onto the floor, sounding soft and inconsequential. Like a stack of papers. Malachi reached his nose forward to inspect the ones that hit his paws, but didn't seem to mind as the Sheriff quickly collected them.

She didn't give him enough time to compose himself, let alone to come up with any sort of response, as she said, "I come from a family of hunters. We go from state to state, wherever activity is the busiest and most dangerous. Wherever we're of most use. I've moved around a lot in my life, Sheriff Stilinski, and believe it or not, I've seen a lot. But I've _never_ seen anything like Beacon Hills."

Whatever he was expecting to learn from her, this was not it. Maybe a few details that they could use, at the most. For whatever reason, his son and Scott seemed extremely suspicious of this girl. In fact, they'd requested that he interrogate her, to see if he could gauge what it was she knew and wanted from them. It's the entire reason he's been questioning her so harshly. But this? No one could have seen this coming. All the boys really seemed to expect when they requested the interrogation was a particularly nosy blind girl. They'd hoped that being questioned would scare her off.

They'd all had their hands full this month. For the kids, it seemed that they couldn't catch a break. Whether it was normal mundane issues at school, or an injured teammate, or a classmate of theirs having their entire family massacred… and then everything that happened at the hospital? Sheriff was still a bit unclear of the details. Then there was the party.

And amongst all of this, apparently a new girl at school was raising red flags. Stiles claimed that she seemed to be sticking her nose into things that wasn't her business. Scott said it was more like she had an unfortunate habit of turning up in the wrong place at the wrong time. But, he told the Sheriff, maybe that had to do with the fact that she was blind.

There was already one family of hunters in Beacon Hills. Why would they need another? Then again, should he be surprised? So much is changing so quickly in this town, he should have learned to expect the unexpected by now. And given everything else that's happened, how unexpected is it _really_ for a new family of hunters to find their way to Beacon Hills? The supernatural can't seem to stay away from it.

The silence had stretched on for a while. Cecelia was patient with the Sheriff, allowing him all the time he needed to gather his wits enough to form a response. "So… you know?"

She smiled in amusement. "Yes," She told him.

"And… you were at the party."

"Yes."

He sat back. "You hunt werewolves. That's why you killed that man."

"No," She impatiently snapped, as if he was a child and she was his teacher. "We don't just kill without cause. Some Hunters have adopted that method, but we only stop what can't be controlled."

"So why did you kill the man?"

"I _didn't_ ," She said, her hand balling into a fist briefly. Cecelia seemed to catch herself and drew in a breath, struggling to maintain composure. "I was investigating, just like you. As I was taught to do."

"…By your father? The police officer?"

"The hunter," She corrected, and Stilinski finally let out a frustrated sigh. "And the police officer," She quickly amended, as if knowing it would confuse him more and doing it deliberately. He shook his head and shrugged at her.

"I don't get it. Your father, the police officer, the hunter— _whatever_ —told you to go to the party so you could investigate an attack that you somehow knew was going to happen?"

Finally, a smirk cracked her tight mask of exasperation. "Perhaps I should start over."

"Yeah, perhaps you should," The Sheriff tersely agreed. Cecelia simply raised her eyebrows at his agitation and shifted in her seat before starting again.

"My family, we're not the sort of hunters you seem to be familiar with. There are those who hunt only werewolves. Then, there are those who hunt the supernatural. You know by now that there are more than just werewolves among us, yes?"

As she asked the question, the ghost of an accent poked through her words. Just enough to tighten certain syllables—and it was too difficult for him to identify. He nodded on instinct, quickly remembered that she was blind, and opened his mouth to respond. But apparently she had some way of picking up on his nod, because she continued.

"We move to a place that has had a spike of activity. Things happen, things that land just to the left of logic. Strange circumstances of sudden death that are written off with an explanation that doesn't quite sit right, like an animal attack, or some bizarre rare illness. We sit back and observe, poke around a bit to get a feel for what's actually happening, and if it seems necessary, we take action."

"What constitutes your intervention?" Sheriff asked, almost critically. "Who makes that call?"

"That depends. If it's threatening public safety, mostly. The supernatural are not vermin that need to be exterminated, as some might have you believe. There are good ones, and there are bad ones. Just like humans."

"How do you know so much?" He couldn't help but ask it. She looked so young, so defenseless.

She kept one eyebrow raised. "It's my job."

Now _there_ was a sentiment that the Sheriff could respect, no matter how disturbing it was to hear it pass through this girl's lips. Content, he kept quiet as she continued.

"So, back to the dam. I already mentioned that Beacon Hills is unnaturally active, didn't I? It's like this place sends up flares that draw the supernatural here. We've known about the werewolves for a very long time, but it's been quiet for the most part."

The Sheriff outright snorted now. "Quiet?" He mocked. "I wouldn't say that."

"In recent months, things have begun to pick up, have they not?"

Sheriff quieted as he reflected. It was impossible for the truth of her words not to affect him. He thought of Stiles, and of what he'd been through. And of Allison. Softly, he said, "They have."

"The Kanima was worrisome, but we assumed the Argents had things under control. Apparently, that is not the case. The Alpha pack. The business with the Darach and all the innocent lives it took. All of this, and still, the dam held strong. I believe your son was the first true crack. Pretty soon it was Allison Argent's death, and now you've got a serial killer running around throwing his tomahawk at people and a family of wendigos filling the county morgue. I'd say you're in dire need of some reinforcements, Sheriff, before this dam bursts. That's where my family comes in. But we're going to need to work together."

His head was practically spinning. "Who are you?" He wanted to know.

"I am Cecelia Rose," She told him. "And I want to help. But we need your cooperation."

"Your father?"

She seemed confused. Sheriff rephrased the question.

"Your father is a police officer. Should I expect him to show up and ask for a position in my station?"

Her face grew sad. "Unfortunately, nothing would shock me more. My father died."

He was hesitant to ask. But, since he'd already started down this road, he did it anyways. "I'm sorry, you just talked about him like he was still—around."

"He is," She said. "In some ways, he is. But to answer your question, no. He will not be applying for a position," Cecelia's lips curled into a smirk and Sheriff felt a morbid twist of amusement and marveled slightly at how resilient she seemed.

"How about we start from the beginning?" Sheriff asked. "If we're going to work together, I'd like to know what you've found so far."

* * *

 _ **Author's Note: This is an idea that's been rattling around in my mind for a while. I've never read a Teen Wolf OC story where the protagonist is blind, and certainly never one about a family of hunters that isn't the Argents. This was the prologue, to introduce Cecelia. Now the next chapter will go backwards in time, all the way back to the first impression Cecelia has of Beacon Hills. It'll be like a flashback, and every now and then it'll pop back to the interrogation room with Sheriff and Cecelia. Do you guys like it so far? Please let me know what you think!**_


	2. River Flows in You

**_Thank you for all the favorites and follows! :) It's really encouraging to see such an enthusiastic response. I wasn't really expecting it._**

* * *

It started out like any other weeknight. She sat at her armchair after supper, with her violin resting in between the side of her jaw and her shoulder, the garlic still lingering on her tongue as the notes twisted across the room softly. The melody was the sort that grew in intensity.

Her family loved to listen to her play. As a child, it was a mandatory rule that each of her siblings pick up some sort of hobby. Eventually Cecelia's hobby grew into a passion, but before that came many years of lessons and countless arguments with her mother in particular. Even though it was a rule that her father made up, her mother enforced it with all the compassion of a warden.

But as time went on and her skills sharpened, her father would play piano alongside her, and together they could play for hours. There were few things she enjoyed doing more than playing music with her father.

At the moment, she was doing something that her dad sort of hated. You see, Cecelia had always had a natural affinity for the stringed instrument. A prodigy, some might call her. Even from the earliest memory she had of playing the violin she could recall drawing the bow across the strings to mimic music they'd been listening to earlier that day. _Playing by ear,_ her violin teacher had called it. Modern music, like Simon and Garfunkel's _Sound of Silence_ , her mother's favorite, or even Whitney Houston.

But her father was a staunch traditionalist. It seemed that as far as he was concerned, covering modern music on a traditional instrument was an affront to the musical institution as a whole, and therefore, Vivaldi and Mozart became the two leading men in Cecelia's life. But when her father wasn't around?... Well, that was a different matter entirely.

She was currently playing a cover of River Flows In You by Yiruma. A soft thud came from behind her and the note she drew out choked to a shrill halt without warning. Cecelia's eyes flew open, though she could not see anything, and her father's best friend's voice reached her ears.

"Cecelia," He said, his tone quiet and humbled. He sounded to be lingering in the doorway of her room. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stop you… I just heard—"

"Tell you what," She interrupted, a smart smile on her lips. The violin was still resting across her arm, but she'd dropped it from her shoulder and pointed at Paul with the bow in her hand. "If you promise not to tell dad, I'll play the rest for you."

There was a long pause. Then, just as Cecelia started to think he'd walked away, he quietly promised not to tell her dad. His voice was unusually somber, and although it pricked her interest, she understood that sometimes music moves people to a haunting sort of deep emotion that's intensely personal.

So without remarking further, Cecelia turned back around in her armchair and lifted her violin to her shoulder. She rested her jaw down against the smooth surface and breathed out a calming breath, and closed her eyes as she drew the bow across the strings again—from the beginning, as she'd promised.

When it finished, Cecelia finally settled the violin back onto its stand and turned to smile at Paul. "Cecelia, that was…" He had never been as good at masking his emotions as her dad was. Paul was a lawyer, an extremely skilled lawyer—actually, he was _their_ lawyer. But first and foremost, he was Paul. Her dad's best friend. The man who took her family out on his boat every Memorial Day weekend. The man who shared hilarious stories about a younger version of her father, a version that hardly existed anymore. "That was incredible. Did you compose that?"

She snorted loudly. "Um, no. That would be Yiruma."

"Yiruma…" Paul repeated as he came further into her room and stopped about three steps in. "I'll have to look him up on iTunes."

She snorted again. "You do that, Paul. But you didn't hear about him from me."

"Why wouldn't you want me to tell Ken about that?" Ken was her father's name. "If I had a daughter who could play like that, I'd be—"

"Paul, you know how dad is. He's a purist," She said with a wry grin. "No two ways about it."

"Well, he's—" he broke off, like something had happened that she didn't see.

She frowned, looking around unseeingly and trying to listen for something out of the usual. But all she could hear was the ticking clock on her nightstand and the slightly unsteady breath of Paul. "…Paul?"

"I'm sorry," He said, clearing his throat as he struggled to compose himself. "Cecelia, I came here to tell you that—" he broke off and cleared his throat again. "That something happened earlier tonight."

Dread grew in her chest, causing her stomach to prickle and her skin to chill with that odd sort of panicked heat. But it seemed like an overreaction, so she did her best to suppress it. "If this is about sneaking up on me, don't worry about it. It happens a lot." She chuckled a little too tightly, trying to make light of the situation that was so obviously more serious than she was willing to acknowledge. "I am blind, you know."

"Yes…" He said, almost absently. "It's not that."

She frowned. "Paul, you're starting to scare me a little here. What is it? Did dad do something? Do we have to move again?"

He took a breath. "I'm sorry," He said, his voice embodying every single part of that phrase. "I'm so sorry."

"Where to this time?" She asked, assuming that his indirect response was an unspoken confirmation. "Alaska? Europe? Perth, maybe? Something fun, I hope."

"No, Cecelia… your father is gone."

Cecelia's eyebrows drew together tightly. "…He left already?"

"No," Paul said, though it clearly pained him to do so. "He's dead, Cecelia. He was shot."

There was a long pause. Her heart felt like it had imploded. It was all she could do not to panic or throw the bow of her violin at him and scream for him to stop, to stop trying to hurt her with his lies. "That's not funny," She told him, angry.

"I'm sorry," He said again, his voice thick with unshed tears. "But this isn't a joke."

"Shut up," She hoarsely said, standing from her chair. "Shut _up!_ He's can't be _dead!_ Don't be cruel!"

But she was being venomous because she could tell he wasn't trying to trick her. She could tell by the way he was stepping forward and meeting her anger with details, like adding fuel to a fire. "It was on a case. It was supposed to be easy, but something went wrong. They killed him. They pulled the wool over his eyes and—"

" _Paul_." Her mother's voice was strong and disbelieving, the definition of rage. "That's enough! This is _wildly_ inappropriate—"

"Mom," Cecelia practically pled, stepping towards the hall and bumping into Paul's arm along the way. He backed away from her as she addressed her mother. "Is it true?"

There was a pause. "After I show Paul out, we can speak—"

She turned away from her mother. It was true, then. As Paul and her mother began to fight with each other over whether or not it was appropriate to give the details to Cecelia, she went to her window and placed her hand on the sill. She withdrew into herself, just like she's always done when adults fought near her. And they fought a lot in her family. Cecelia always withdrew into herself and pretended to be a thousand miles away.

Paul felt that Cecelia needed to know. He claimed it was what Ken wanted. "You know that, Betty," He said. "He told you himself! It's _time_ —"

"It's time for her to grieve," Her mother snapped. "Not be bogged down by the gory details of her father's murder!"

"You mean the truth?" Paul countered equally as venomously. "There was a time for sheltering her, but that time has passed. It's only putting her in _danger_ , especially with her condition! Can't you see? Now is the time, Betty! They've come for Ken. They'll come for one of you next! Things will escalate unless—"

"Enough!" Her mother used that resounding shout that she usually saved for arguments with her father.

Cecelia wanted to break something. Her emotions were almost too much to take, a whirlwind inside her, as her mind flew a million miles an hour on a single thought alone. He's gone? He… was shot? _Her_ dad? Kennedy Rose? _Shot?_

Paul left then. He said something to her, perhaps muttered another broken apology, perhaps bit something nasty at her mother again. She couldn't be sure. She was too lost in her own thoughts. Her mother left, too.

With her jaw clenched, she turned back to her violin and picked it up. A long, sweet note curled through her room as hot tears spilled down her cheeks through her tightly shut eyes. She made it through the first few notes before her finger would skip a string, or her bow would drag across them in the incorrect direction and produce a cringe-worthy screech.

Three times, she started over. Three times, she couldn't play properly. So she switched from Yiruma to Vivaldi—The Four Seasons; her father's favorite. But she screwed that up, too.

In a fit of rage she cracked her bow over her knee and dissolved into a sobbing mess. And after that day, she couldn't bring herself to pick her violin up again.

* * *

"My mom didn't want this life for me," She told the Sheriff. She wasn't even sure if he'd been listening this whole time. He's just sat across from her, silent as she spoke. "She wanted me to go to prom. To get a job in some restaurant and slave for measly tips, to live life as normally as I could with my condition."

"You mean… your blindness?" Sheriff asked, as gently as possible.

A ghost of a smile played over her lips. "But my dad always knew I would be the one to carry the torch after he ducked out. Everyone else thought I would go on to play the violin for some orchestra in some swanky city—but my dad… he knew."

"I'm sorry, but… what does this have to do with… anything?" Sheriff tried to be as tactful and respectful as he could, but it was a bit like trying to glue a cracked egg back together.

"I'm trying to help you understand the nature of how we work. The Argents have their way, their motives, and we have ours. My family's business wasn't something I willingly stepped into. At least, not at first. It wasn't until my father was killed that I ever felt the need to step in."

"Right," Sheriff said, though it was clear he still didn't exactly follow.

"I could have let Tommy handle it. I could have let Charlie take control. I could have lived my life as averagely as possible, but… at the same time, I couldn't. After dad died, it wasn't my choice anymore."

"Okay, Michael Corleone," He smartly quipped, drawing a surprised laugh from the girl. "I get it. You're the favorite child. Go on, then."

" _That's_ not what I said," She laughed. "Tommy's the favorite. He's the baby. Charlie is the most responsible, he's the oldest. And I'm… I was the one with the most potential. Which is ironic, I know, given my… condition. But it's true. I was the one who had no desire to become a Hunter. I wanted different things from life, something all my own. Charlie was treated like—like a prince in training to take a throne, or something. The one who would eventually take control. Tommy was the suck up. He was the one who wanted it too bad."

"And you're—what? The smartest?"

She laughed again. "I'm the girl!"

Sheriff laughed too, amused by her somewhat cheeky explanation.

"Charlie was too impulsive. He let his temper get the better of him. Tommy takes the easy routes; he's a big fan of shortcuts. I think, more than anything, Tommy wants to be loved by everyone."

"Where are your brothers now?"

"Tommy is still in junior high. He still tries pretty hard to help, but for the most part I try to occupy him with small potatoes."

"And Charlie?"

"As I said, Charlie's sort of like the prince. But I volunteered to step up. I took initiative, and I did something no one thought I would."

"I thought you were in charge?"

She shrugged a shoulder. "My mom has the final say."

It was clear that the Sheriff didn't follow the dynamics of her family at all. "Okay… So what does this have to do with Beacon Hills?"

She drew in a breath. "Moving here was Charlie's idea…"

* * *

"It's all the way across the country," Cecelia reminded her mother, in case that seemed to somehow escape her notice.

"This won't be the first time we've crossed the nation on business," Her mother dismissed, and Tommy enthusiastically chirped up from his seat near the end of the table.

"Cece, just think about it! Cali _fornia_. Come on," He took a large bite of his roll. "SoCal. The Golden coast? Palm trees? Surfer babes?"

"Tommy, shut up," She said with a roll of her eyes.

"Hey," Her mother scolded. "Don't talk to your brother that way."

"Yeah! That's the last time I try to cheer your crabby ass up!"

"Tommy!"

"Beacon Hills is landlocked, Tom," Charlie informed him. "The nearest beach is an hour and a half away. And it's in Northern California, not Southern."

"I've got a car," Tommy easily dismissed.

"You're thirteen." Charlie firmly swatted any fantasy that was floating around Tommy's mind to the ground with that reminder. "You've got another three years before you'll be driving anywhere in America. And another eight years before you'll be drinking, so don't get any wise ideas."

"Who are you?" Tommy bit. "My—"

"Tommy!" Cecelia and their mother chided. "That's enough," Their mother continued. "Charlie is right. You'll still have to have piano lessons, too, so don't think you're getting off the hook there either. Everything is going to be the same in California."

"Mom and I still have business to do," Charlie added. "And you two still have school to finish."

"Yes, masta," Tommy grumbled, and Charlie smacked the back of his head at the same time their mother scolded him for the hundredth time that night.

"I'm not telling you again," Their mother said. "Keep it up and I'll give your car to your sister."

"What!" Tommy squawked. "She can't drive!"

"Neither can you," Cecelia slyly commented, though it was ignored as Tommy went on.

"What's she gonna do with a car?"

"I'll use it for scraps," She cruelly told him. "Hawk them on eBay and use the profit to buy a new little brother from the black market."

A piece of food hit her face and their mom immediately scolded Tommy, who was practically on the floor laughing. Cecelia wiped the glob of mashed potatoes from her cheek with grudging amusement, letting it smack the floor beside her with a wet plop. Instantly, Malachi was up and licking away any traces of the starchy food.

"On second thought, maybe I'll just buy a one way ticket to London and me and Malachi will ditch all of your sorry asses."

"Cecelia, that's not funny," Their mother said in a suddenly serious tone, and suddenly even Tommy wasn't laughing anymore. "We're a family. We need each other now more than ever."

"Besides," Tommy interjected, desperately trying to lift humor back into the conversation. "If you visit London you're taking me with you."

"Three years, TomTom," She said, using her childhood nickname for him. "You and me. Pub crawl."

"Over my dead body," Charlie interjected with thinly veiled amusement. At first they ignored him, but then he surprised them by adding, "You two will be having your first beers with me, you got that?"

Tommy was quicker to recover. Brightly, he cheered, "Hell yeah!"

Cecelia smiled secretly to herself and pushed her plate away. They didn't know it, but Cecelia had already had her first taste of beer. And she preferred a nice red wine.

"You all will see," Their mother suddenly interjected, her voice unusually optimistic. "Beacon Hills will be the place you make the memories to last a life time. I really think it's going to be good for all of us. I can feel it."

"The same way you _felt_ North Dakota was a great place to live?" Tommy smartly asked, and Charlie erupted into laughter.

They all began to regale each other with memories of different disasters that happened in that place, and while their mother pushed the blame onto their father (claiming that he chose it because of the army of vampires that had been gathering) for a moment, all was well.

There was no way of knowing that their mother was right. Beacon Hills _would_ be a place to make the memories, and friends, of a lifetime. But it was also where Charlie would die, and where Tommy would lose some of that spark in his eyes, and Cecelia would forget to dream about traveling to places like London.

* * *

 _ **We're getting closer to the start of season four! Next chapter, we should have some interaction with familiar faces. What do you guys think? Like it so far?**_

 _ **If I get a review I'll probably make the next chapter longer.**_


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